Just Manoe · Sep 17, 2026
A Stroll Through Emptiness
Play to hear in the writer's voice
We are born exiles into this world.Lonely exiles of oblivion into a cold ruthless world forced to give our existence a purpose- ever since man cracked open the sky. Daily we are tasked with the maintenance of a fine balance between heaven and hell, a process called living. And straying too far into either side of the divide leads to insanity. As we grow up, our sense of loneliness gathers violence and becomes increasingly eloquent. With every breath, the distance between us and the womb grows. This only serves as a reminder of our mortality and the fact that we are alone.
Yet nature provides an escape from the misery that is the promise of life. Some through God, manage to escape this rut. Others through love manage to find a partner through the curse that every examined life promises. Yet some others through the pursuit of goals far greater than them manage to escape life as hell and find some piece of heaven to call home. The unlucky majority walk through life like zombies; with drugs and wild sex their only refuge from the gulags that their empty lives are."Zombies" might sound too far fetched, but most of us have known the feeling. At least most of those who have taken time to examine their lives.
I know fellow zombies understand how everything makes sense till you realize you have the weight of the world's expectations on your back. Till you realize you have never lived life on your terms and you cannot see anything beyond the prescriptions of the system. Inside, your dead dreams have cocked guns trained on a stressed brain. Soon your smiles freeze into a rock. And with every step your spirit recedes into a sea of black waters and you can only watch in tears as it disappears in that murk ,spurred on by strange songs by Sirens to a teary grave. Your fingers have grown bloody,your nails broken from trying to cling on to life. But every time you think of doing yourself in ,cowardice always comes to your rescue. You try to look for something positive in life and all you can find as success is your failure in a failed system.
Soon you cannot breathe as you choke on the stench of your mediocrity. You try alcohol to drown the pain within. You drink yourself numb. But tomorrow your sense of doom meets you with a bright smile dampening a beautiful sunrise. The perceived joy of the rest of the world only serves to exacerbate the emptiness. Then comes the weed.Old good Mary Jane makes life sensible. When taken with alcohol, a certain equilibrium is reached,albeit fleetingly, where only bliss exists. And you suddenly long for this promise of childhood nirvana;but as is the nature of everything in adult life, this too comes to pass.
Then one night after you are done with the system, you get extremely wasted. It starts with some Valium and a concoction of coca cola and pain killers. You feel fine. Your wondering mind directs you to that ever horny girl's room. You knock the door and there she is watching Game of Thrones. And without asking, you plant one kiss on her lips. One kiss from the depths of hell and her knees buckle. Your penis is rock hard and all it seeks is violence. You look into her eyes and ask her what she wants. She takes off her pants and tosses her divine ass into the waiting air. And just like that, you zoom in like a possessed rabbit from the house of sex. To the spirit of Lil Wayne's "I'm Me" you fuck her till you are spent. After some time of roughness and violence, the lethargy of Valium kicks in. You have to leave for the night is just but a baby.
Afterwards you meet up with friends in a container then on to finer stuff. All along your sense of invincibility rises with every puff of a blunt or chunk of cookie swallowed. By midnight you are out of your senses. You cannot be allowed into a club. So you are forced to sleep on pavements.Your knees give in and life slowly bleeds out of you. You know you have walked past the threshold of fucked up and it is either death or a paradigm shift. You choose the former and throw in some more Valium but you throw up a booze fountain.
You wake up the following day with torn trousers covered in vomit. You are still high so the walk of shame does not exactly have the sting it should. But something has changed. Death paid you a visit last night but some how you escaped. "Something has to change," you say. The emptiness must be filled. These drugs and sex cannot be the answer. You must find something more. You must find your life that purpose death reminded you of last night.